Graf
Explorer
The whole “what should be removed from dungeon” thread prompted me to start thinking about this again.
Anyway Dungeon is in a golden age now.
Every so often something happens in a serial publication. It has a period where, for some unfathomable reason, every episode in a row is great. Dungeon has always been good (full disclosure: I enjoyed the polyhedron mini-games way back when) but recently it has reached a whole new level.
Using only recent Dungeon mags (except for the first session) I have literally run my entire campaign with around two hours of preparation a week. The quality is better than published modules (and for a fraction of the price). Each adventure focuses on using existing material with only very small additions, substituting the weird crunch of a lot of published adventures for good stories.
It does this while supporting many different campaign worlds and doing a good job of pushing barriers (in particular the last Adventure path, and the recent epic level adventure were both interesting and well done).
With the recent magazines also providing new locations and then setting adventures in them my appreciation has also increased.
As a DMs resource it is literally unbeatable.
Has anyone noticed that the cartoons (Downer & Mt. Z) are all from a Monster’s point of view? I think that’s a great touch.
At some point something will happen and the golden age will end; but I'm hoping there are at least a year or so before that happens.
Anyway Dungeon is in a golden age now.
Every so often something happens in a serial publication. It has a period where, for some unfathomable reason, every episode in a row is great. Dungeon has always been good (full disclosure: I enjoyed the polyhedron mini-games way back when) but recently it has reached a whole new level.
Using only recent Dungeon mags (except for the first session) I have literally run my entire campaign with around two hours of preparation a week. The quality is better than published modules (and for a fraction of the price). Each adventure focuses on using existing material with only very small additions, substituting the weird crunch of a lot of published adventures for good stories.
It does this while supporting many different campaign worlds and doing a good job of pushing barriers (in particular the last Adventure path, and the recent epic level adventure were both interesting and well done).
With the recent magazines also providing new locations and then setting adventures in them my appreciation has also increased.
As a DMs resource it is literally unbeatable.
Has anyone noticed that the cartoons (Downer & Mt. Z) are all from a Monster’s point of view? I think that’s a great touch.
At some point something will happen and the golden age will end; but I'm hoping there are at least a year or so before that happens.
